Most F2P games are more or less P2W at least in the regard to PVP and the like. I doubt that WoW will go F2P though as long as they still write the subscription numbers in millions.

Which free to play games have you played that are pay to win? I've played a number of them and have yet to come across this despite it being a well recognized concern. I don't doubt you, I'd just like to take a look at one.

Won't go F2P any time in the near future. They make too much money off the subs. Personally, what I would like from them is to stop charging for the expansions. That's like having your cake and eating it. They could drop the price of the subs a bit but I also don't see that happening.

Depends on you definition of WIN. The most they would do is probably offer insta 90's maybe faster Valor point /rep gains or extra coins for LFR and custom skins. None of that stuff is actually game breaking in the large scheme of things and I wouldn't consider it P2W. I could pay riot to own every champ and own every single rune but that doesn't mean I would win any of my matches in LOL. Same with this. None of those things are going to help you down a boss faster.

My idea of P2W would be

$5 - buy one piece of tier 14
$10 - tier 15
$15 - tier 16
Full sets on sale $50 and greater price breaks when the new tier comes out
$5 for a lot of 100 herbs/bars/jems/mats.ect
$10 for Flight master extraordinary licence which would automatically give your account max riding skill for any and all characters as well as future characters
$25 for a permanent enlightenment buff tabard that's account bound that boost exp and rep gain by %100 even in current content
$10 for trade skill capacitor gizmo that allows you to learn an additional tradeskill and have all the benefits (this would not be unique)
$10 for Profession college which teaches/gives you the mats to level any trade skill to cap

That stuff would definitely separate people into a lot of different camps.

Could we ever trust a company like blizzard being able to handle F2P correctly?

I found SWToR to be incredibly restricted when it went "F2P"

But apparently the sun shines out of Biowares arse? How well can you trust them?

WTF is trust anyway? They are companies. They are in the market to make money. Same as you are...or do you sell yourself short and work for free or cheap? No..you try and sell yor assets and skills as dear as possible.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

... there are lots of different types of players, with different amounts of time to play, and different tastes for the content and difficulty and time commitment they want to give to any of those pieces of content. The person that plays for an hour or so a few times a week is playing the same game as the person that plays five hours every night.....

Yes, WOW is definitely pay 2 win right now.. They are so greedy for making us pay for expansions to get more powerful. I should be able to stay in Vanilla and be as strong as those cheaters who paid to play in Pandaran raids.

You jest, but on my server people are constantly advertising for-real-money services for:

1. PVP RBG mounts.
2. Challenge Mode gear.

Heroic mode achievements will eventually show up I am sure. They have in the past.

If you're wealthy and willing to spend the money, WoW is already somewhat pay-to-win, at least if winning is who has the best crap at the AH mailbox. Look at the other thread where people are wishing Mythic raids dropped a different color gear - I think maybe the AH/Mailbox thing is the real goal of wow.

Yes, WOW is definitely pay 2 win right now.. They are so greedy for making us pay for expansions to get more powerful. I should be able to stay in Vanilla and be as strong as those cheaters who paid to play in Pandaran raids.

Irony on a real high level...

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

... there are lots of different types of players, with different amounts of time to play, and different tastes for the content and difficulty and time commitment they want to give to any of those pieces of content. The person that plays for an hour or so a few times a week is playing the same game as the person that plays five hours every night.....

Won't go F2P any time in the near future. They make too much money off the subs. Personally, what I would like from them is to stop charging for the expansions. That's like having your cake and eating it. They could drop the price of the subs a bit but I also don't see that happening.

You can't really blame Blizzard for that, they keep asking for more cake in the form of a cash shop and automated service, and player keep paying them. I'm surprised they aren't pushing it even further by now.

Errr. Why would you think Blizzard couldn't work a F2P/B2P model into WoW if they wanted to? They already have two F2P games in the pipe, and one's just about ready to release.

SWTOR, IMO, doesn't even have that bad of a F2P model. Yeah you have to fork out a bit of money to get Preferred and the ability to equip epic gear, but that's about it, really, and I'd wager that it came out very much in credit when they let you buy account-wide bag slots/bank slots/character slots/other goodies. There are a few unfortunate nonsensical restrictions, like some emotes you can only use as a subscriber which I do not get at all, but they don't comprise the core of the game.

I also doubt that WoW would make a hard F2P transition. If anything, it'd probably go B2P with an expac. They could do it, and it'd be a bumpy ride, but they could do it.

Originally Posted by Vizardlorde

You must have been unsubbed for along time wows community has been rotten from the moment the game became really popular which was around late BC beginnng of wrath.

I'm really amazed by how many people say that F2P/B2P games have crap communities. GW2 has a far better open community than I think I've ever seen in WoW.

If you are particularly bold, you could use a Shiny Ditto. Do keep in mind though, this will infuriate your opponents due to Ditto's beauty. Please do not use Shiny Ditto. You have been warned.

I think SWTOR did great with F2P.
Experience boosts that you can buy, or get for making progress with the story line.
Everything else is purely cosmetic.

Not being able to sprint until level 10 and subs can at level 1,
Couldn't get a mount until like 10 levels after those that sub,
Couldn't even equip epic gear,
Couldn't re-gem or w/e items, (been awhile, can't remember what it was called)
Have to pay for action bars,
Reduced XP gain,
No rested XP,
Can't send mail,
Can't trade,
You can only even fucking rez 5 times. After that you need to pay.

The game, community and content is too large to be sustainable from F2P. We'd have to give up probably 3/4th's of the content in an expansion and have to wait even longer for one. You just can't beat the consistency of a monthly sub. That is, for a game with 2 million+ people. I don't see it as being a good business model for the likes of 500k subscribers though.

If Blizzard went free to play they'd be essentially scrapping the game and moving on to something new. Successful companies don't have their top making game scrapped until they have another big fish.

Games go f2p if: the game failed to make the huge numbers they wanted, it started as f2p, or it's being scrapped/finished to move onto better things.

So if they went f2p with wow, than yea I can see them going p2w, why not make the last bit you can? People get so upset that multimillion dollar companies want to make every bit of money they can, that's how you stay on top! Every lil bit matters man